The theory
Swiss psychologist Bärbel Inhelder is perhaps the best known of Piaget's collaborators. She made some important contributions to his stages of cognitive development theory (which will be featured in greater depth in some upcoming articles on this blog). Inhelder was particularly interested in how children's minds develop to the point where they can reason for themselves. Her work with Jean Piaget led to the proposal that there is a 'formal operations' stage marking the transition from childhood to adolescence. They argued that when children reach the age of about 11 years old, they are capable of using deductive reasoning to make sense of the world around them.
How it can be applied in education
Inhelder's work with Piaget was instrumental in shaping the way schools are organised today and is a key influence on the design of curricula. The transition between primary (elementary) school and secondary (high) school is marked when children reach the age of 11 (or 12 in some countries such as Scotland).
It could be argued that these decisions were made because of Inhelder and Piaget's cognitive stages theory. The Formal Operations stage is where children are capable of higher order thinking such as abstract reasoning - imagining the outcome of their actions, and it is also the stage of development where they can develop their inferential reasoning skills. A good example of inferential reasoning in education is where the teacher presents students with puzzles or challenges as a part of their learning: 'If George is older than David, and David is older than Michael, who is the oldest?' Inferential reasoning skills can be developed over time as children learn about new concepts, how they compare, and how to make decisions. The ability to deduce from the general to the specific is the basis of all good science, and runs consistently through a number of disciplines such as mathematics and statistical analysis.
Deductive reasoning methods can therefore also be applied to good effect in just about any lesson on any subject. Students could be encouraged to ask 'what if?' hypothetical questions during physics or chemistry experiments, and then test out their predictions; or to predict the trajectory of a cricket ball in sport; or be asked to judge whether a statement is true or false, on the basis of evidence; or to detect grammatical errors according to 'the rules' of a language. Indeed, the entire secondary curriculum in schools is based on the premise that children between 11-16 years old have developed their higher level cognitive capabilities sufficiently enough to be able to think creatively, use abstract reasoning and perform numerical calculations.
It should be noted that many of the theories proposed by Inhelder and Piaget are contentious and have been challenged not only on the basis of their small sample size (he mainly used his own children as subjects in his experiments) and methods, but also due to alternative findings and interpretations carried out by a number of psychologists. Are there actually stages of cognitive development, and are they as Inhelder and Piaget claimed? And of course, the most difficult problem of them all - do all children develop through these stages at the same time and in the same way? For more details on these counter arguments see the work of Margaret Donaldson.
References
Donaldson, M. (1987) Children's Minds. London: Fontana Press.
Inhelder, B. and Piaget, J. (1959) The Growth of Logical Thinking From Childhood to Adolescence. Basic Books.
Previous posts in this series:
Anderson ACT-R Cognitive Architecture
Argyris Double Loop Learning
Bandura Social Learning Theory
Bruner Scaffolding Theory
Craik and Lockhart Levels of Processing
Csíkszentmihályi Flow Theory
Dewey Experiential Learning
Engeström Activity Theory
Ebbinghaus Learning and Forgetting Curves
Festinger Social Comparison Theory
Festinger Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Gardner Multiple Intelligences Theory
Gibson Affordances Theory
Gregory Visual Perception Hypothesis
Hase and Kenyon Heutagogy
Hull Drive Reduction Theory
Photo by Steve Wheeler
The shape of minds to come by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar